Globe optimistic on growing demand for home broadband

AYALA-LED Globe Telecom is optimistic of further improving customers’ internet experience in the Philippines following the latest Akamai State of the Internet Connectivity Report, which showed robust growth of home broadband adoption and steadily increasing average fixed broadband speeds in the country.

Senior Vice President of Globe At Home Martha Sazon said the report substantiates the company’s endeavor to continue improving the state of internet in the Philippines.

“Our efforts are finally bearing fruit and we expect overall internet experience to improve further moving forward as we continue with the aggressive deployment of leading edge network technology, as we progress towards serving two million homes by 2020 with high-speed internet,” said Sazon.

Globe internet at home customers grew to 1.2 million in the first quarter of 2017, representing an 8.8 percent growth year-on-year. Globe said this is a result of its aggressive push for affordable home broadband plans, with the majority of customers subscribing to a Globe At Home Plan 1299 at 10 Mbps.

This is part of the company’s initiative of creating an internet superhighway by deploying fiber optic cables in 20,000 barangays all over the country to provide faster and more reliable internet access in about 2 million homes nationwide.

Sazon noted that while internet at home adoption has been steadily improving, speeds over fixed-line remain a challenge, prompting Globe to expand network coverage and enhance capacities for fixed-line and improve overall state of internet in the country.

Sazon added that due to a history of underinvestment in the area of fixed broadband, little or no support from the government and permitting issues, the Philippines remained stagnant in terms of global average in terms of fixed broadband adoption and speed.

“This prompted the telco industry to catch up by addressing the huge infrastructure gaps in contrast with its Asian neighbors,” she said.

In its State of the Internet Connectivity Report, Akamai Technologies said that for the first quarter of 2017, the Philippines showed significant improvement in broadband speeds and adoption.

It said average fixed broadband speed was up 20 percent quarter-on-quarter and 57 percent year-on-year at 5.5 Mbps. Its “above 4 Mbps connectivity adoption” was at 39 percent adoption rate, growing 26 percent from the previous quarter and up 111 percent from a year ago.

Higher bandwidth adoption rates more than tripled from 2016. For above 10 Mbps connectivity adoption, the country showed an 11 percent adoption, up 330 percent from a year ago. For 15 Mbps connectivity adoption rate, the country showed steady improvement at 3.6 percent adoption, up 373 percent from last year.

Akamai said that the government’s announcement of a planned national broadband network in the first quarter suggests improvements to the country’s infrastructure in the coming years.